What I Never Had
Chapter Summary: Things get a little more twisted.
Chapter Rating: M, for language, gore/violence, and adult themes.
WARNING: I'm serious about the gore/violence and adult themes. If you aren't of age, or can't stand sickening things... then don't read! I'm sorry, but this isn't for you.
Author's Notes: Whoo, so... I promised the next update would be one of my multi-chaptered stories, but I didn't specify which one so... updating this one next is still fair game! It's just... I was re-reading chapter one for errors (I found one in the first sentence where I said 'has' instead of 'as', which was pretty lame of me) and I just had to write the second chapter because, well... I dunno.
I'm pretty proud of myself, though! Since I've written this, I think (I think) I've seen two other Shino x Kiba fics from Kiba's POV! Yay me, but I do have to keep in mind they might not have read my story, so it might be something they came up with on their own. In which case, props to them.
Now, about my life (and I'll keep it short): I'm in band. You know that (probably), but what you don't know is that between the end of school and practice is about three hours, give or take a half, so what I do is I go with a friend (I'll call him Ginger, even though he hates the nickname) and yesterday (Tuesday) Another guy I know (but don't know well enough to call a 'friend') went with us. We'll call him Frenchie, since he is all-out for the French, yadda yadda.
So, I'm a clutz and I trip a lot, and we're walking to Subway 'cuz it's real close to school, and Father apparently drove by... and maybe Frenchie and Ginger were shoving each other around (they don't get along) and I tripped at the same time (too many coincidences), but Father is convinced that they are bullying me and beating me up.
Which they aren't, thanks. They're really great guys. My father is just racist against anyone not Chinese (which makes total sense, since he married a white woman, wtf?).
Disclaimer: I forgot this in chapter one... so let this stand for the whole story: I don't own, I don't make profits, etc.
2: Me
THE CLIENT'S RANCH was just about as lame as the rest of the doped-up town. It stank, too; like horse shit and spoiled feed. The front gate had no lock and the white sign hanging precariously by one rusty nail read, Happy Horse Farms with a picture of a pony (but the paint had chipped, so the creature appeared to have no face past the ears).
"Oh, I get it!" I exclaimed as Hinata poked at the gate, afraid it would disintegrate if she pushed it open. I gave it a good kick for her and it swung on it's hinges. "Equine is the same as horse!"
Shino rolled his eyes and walked through the now open gate. Hinata followed and I paused to close the gate.
"Shit!" I yelped when the sign fell off. Both of my teammates stopped, but only Hinata turned.
"What, Kiba-kun?" she asked. I hopped over the low gate and picked the sign up by a corner, scratching behind an ear with my free hand.
"I, um," I grinned sheepishly, "I kinda broke this." I waved the sign a little and Hinata's eyes bugged out. Shino sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose.
"B-but not to worry!" I exclaimed, "I can fix it. Just watch! Um... let's see... here's the old nail hole... there's the nail- damn, it's rusty- just wiggle a bit and... voila! Perfect. Look, it's not even crooked anym-"
It slipped off, landing on my foot with a dull sound. I stared at the offensive strip of wood.
"Oh, it's on now, you little fucker," I growled, snatching it back up and trying to slam it back onto the nail repeatedly.
"What in darnation 's goin' on 'ere!"
We all looked at the owner of the new voice.
"Eheh, well, you see, uh, sir, we-" I grinned sheepishly, standing and scratching the back of my head. The sign fell with a lot of clatter for wood on dirt (Damn that thing. I swear to god I'm going to tear it to pieces when no-one's looking).
He eyed the sign. "Oh, don' worreh 'bout Ol' Spotteh! She's a always doin' that," he laughed, coming to the fence and reaching over to pick up 'Old Spotty', his hand coming uncomfortably close to my pants, "Aren'tcha, ya d'rned ol' thang?"
He slapped the deteriorating sign back onto the gate and it magically stayed. "C'mon y'all, y'ur teach's waitin' on ya inside," he said, taking Hinata by the shoulders.
I growled and Shino put a calming hand on my shoulder. "Hinata-sama is a grown kunoichi, Kiba," he reminded me, "She can handle herself."
I shrugged away from the touch, muttering, "Yeah, I know that." Then I tagged on, with a chortle, " 'Ole Spotty' "
Shino's nose wrinkled as he held down the chuckles.
Another of my life goals: get Shino to laugh out loud.
The guy led us to some dilapidated barn-gone-wrong near the middle of the property, where he let go of Hinata to open the door. I pulled Hinata behind me and Shino protectively, and both she and Shino sighed, but I didn't care. I felt better that way, and that was what mattered.
"It ain't much, but hur ya go," he announced, swinging the door open. It protested loudly and a yellow square of flickering candle-light fell over us. The client ushered us inside.
Inside. Inside was clean, but empty. Bland. There was a sloped table with three chairs, one occupied by Kurenai, and two pots in the plastic stand-alone-sink with no counter. The floor was still dirt, but not one piece of straw from the bale in the corner was strewn across it. A pillow and checkered blanket decorated the hay and I assumed it was his bed.
It reeked of poverty.
"Shino," I whispered, standing on tiptoe and cupping a hand in front of my mouth and his ear, "How's he gonna pay us? I don't think he can afford it..."
Shino swatted my hand away at the look Kurenai shot us. Hinata took the seat across from Kurenai and the client took the last chair.
"My apologies, boys," he smiled wanly, "But my knee ain't so good, so I hain't got no choice nuther'n ta sit, ya see?"
Oh, I saw all right. Bad my ass- the guy didn't even have a knee! It was wood from there down.
"Got it busted up by a hoss," he explained, patting it, "Doctahs did all they could, but couldn't fix it, so they 'ad ta apudate."
"How can you still work with horses if they're the reason you don't have a leg?" I blurted out, then clapped a hand over my mouth. "I mean, uh..."
"I apologize for my teammate," Shino said, stepping in front of me, "He has no manners."
I gave him my best I'm sorry eyes.
The client laughed. "S'alright, I ain't got no manners none neithuh, so don'tcha worry 'bout no manners, young'un. As for da hosses... well, they been in da fam'ly fur fou' gen'rations. Guess it's in my blood ta love 'em unconditional-like, ya know?"
I didn't get it. I would have butchered the beast for smashing my leg to smithereens. Shino pulled me aside as Hinata questioned the client.
"Kiba," he said lowly, "He's not a shinobi like yourself and I. Life goes on without a leg for him. Besides, do you remember when Akamaru bit you?" I rubbed my fingers over the scars on my upper arm, nodding, "You still loved Akamaru after that, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but that was different!" I hissed. Shino sighed.
"It is similar enough. Now, Kiba, please try not to say anything else stupid." He turned away to the others, where the client was holding up a picture of his daughter, some ugly, snot-nosed brat with freckles and only a few more teeth in place than him.
"Anything else stupid," I muttered under my breath, joining them.
"You got that?" Kurenai was saying.
"Huh?" I answered. She sighed exasperatedly.
"Please, Kiba! Try to pay attention for once in your life!" she groaned, "I said, Hinata will go with Tobiwara-san to gather all the equine in the barn. Shino will watch the Northeast corner, Kiba will watch the Southeast, and I will watch the West."
"All right!" I exclaimed, pumping my fists, "Let's do this!"
"Kiba! Who is captain of this cell?"
"Awe, c'mon, we're chuunins! Let us do what we want-"
"Kiba..."
"Okay, okay. You are! Ya happy?" I sighed, rolling my eyes.
"No, I'm not. We go when I say go," Kurenai barked. A few moments passed. "Oh, what the hell? Let's do it."
"Yahoo!" I hollered, bounding out of the shack-trying-to-be-a-house. Shino was close behind me and, a good distance directly east of the wanna-be-house, grabbed me by the collar of my jacket roughly. I gagged, stopping dead in my tracks. "Holy cow, Shino! That hurt!"
"Listen, Kiba," he warned, replacing his hands in his pockets, "Try to remain calm. If you shout like that, you will scare the creature away."
"Yeah, yeah. I know that!" I stuck my tongue out at him. "I bet it's a fox. They're good-for-nothing, low-down, conniving-"
"You know the meaning of conniving?"
"Oh shut up!" I scowled, spinning on my heel, "Of course I know the meaning of conniving! Dirty bastard..."
He didn't answer me, so I continued toward the south corner, nearest town.
I'll hand it to Tob-what-ever-his-name-was; he's got a pretty piece of land here. Except for that pile of horse poo I just stepped in.
"Naw, man!" I moaned, bending over to brush it off, "That's disgusting... ugh."
Finding the corner of the property, I settled myself into the corner of the fence, sniffing a bit to accustom myself to the normal scent of the farm. That way, I'd be able to tell if a new scent was approaching.
The smell nearly made me puke, and I actually did gag.
"God, that's awful," I wheezed, covering my nose, "It's like rotting shit... damn, I'm gunna sick if I have to keep smelling it."
I thought for a moment, deliberated a bit longer, then tugged my hitai-ate down so it covered my nose and mouth, quashing the stench a bit.
"It's just a fox anyways," I assured myself, knowing that the hitai-ate would most likely prevent me from detecting approaching scents unless they were really strong, glancing around, "Damn, I hate horses."
For a few hours I drifted between waking and sleeping, pinching myself to stay awake. This god-awful mission was boring as hell. I counted how many stars dotted a square inch of the sky, I counted the number of night-birds that hooted within ten minutes. Hell, I counted the number of splinters I picked up from rubbing my thumb along the top of the fence.
It began to feel very eerie, and I looked around. No movement, 'cept for the wind in the trees a little north of me. No new scents, either. I chuckled softly and chided myself for acting like a little gennin on their first mission.
Then I saw it- a lanky black figure picking it's way across the south side of the field. I growled low in my throat, slinking after it. When I got close enough, I pounced. It gave a strangled squawk and tumbled into the long grass with me. I pinned it down, but the damned this was no fox. Way too strong. It clawed at my face and I fought to hold it down while fumbling around for a kunai (my pack had been shifted in the tussle). Pulling one out, I realized I didn't know if the orders were to capture it, or kill it.
Cursing under my breath, I dropped the kunai, reaching back for a flare. I could feel the creature's ribs beneath my splayed hand with every breath it took. Damn, how could something that was eating so many horses- and damned big horses at that- be so fucking boney? I discarded the thought, finding a flare.
I ripped the seal off and it was a green flare- more expensive and urgent than the usual red or yellow, and a color only Konoha nin were permitted to use. I cursed under my breath again as I tossed it high in the air.
The creature rolled out from under me in my distraction and was a streak of black heading south before I could discern any of its features in the light. I lunged forward, catching a hold of something cold and mushy.
More horse poo. Great.
The flare landed by my arm, casting everything in a glaring green. When my eyes adjusted, a cold thrill shot down my spine.
I screamed.
I was gripping the rotting, maggoty flesh of a horse-head with no hair or mane. The eyeballs, tongue, ears, and large chunks of skin had been torn off and, out-of-focus, I could discern the lump of the rest of its body, shivering as though it were alive and trying to shake off the insects breaking it down on the inside.
I recoiled from the sight, my hand dripping bits of ooze, and turned over so I was sitting.
My breath hitched up a notch; I was sitting in a graveyard for horses, all mane- and tail- less, all in various stages of decomposing.
My gag reflex kicked in, but my flare went out, casting me in near darkness again, so I screamed instead.
Footsteps, then hands on me. I jumped, automatically scooping up the nearly-forgotten kunai and brandishing it. "Oh my god, don't touch me, don't fucking touch me! Oh my god, oh my g-"
"Kiba!" Shino's voice commanded, "Calm down."
I couldn't smell him.
"Shino, I can't smell-" I remembered my hitai-ate over my nose and tore it off, "Shino, the horses, the goddamned horses-"
He pulled me to my feet, producing a pack of matches. I closed my eyes when he lit one. I felt him stiffen beside me, and Kurenai's voice was approaching.
"Kiba!" she gasped, "Shino! Are you boys all right? I saw the flare, green, and- dear god, have mercy!"
The matched burned a moment longer, then was blown out by the wind. I cracked open my eyes.
"Kiba," she said, softer this time. I shrugged, moving away from Shino.
"It's not a fox," my voice cracked when I spoke and cleared my throat afterward. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it with an audible click. I scratched a cheek with my clean hand. I needed to talk. I needed to distract myself. Talking... talking was reflex. Talking was distraction. "It was kinda tall and lanky, and it walked on two feet, but ran on four... and it was all black."
"Thankyou, Kiba," she whispered, guiding both me and Shino back towards the almost-house.
"I'm pretty sure it ran away towards the fence to get out," I mumbled, what I guess was a by-product of shock and horror; maybe a little denial. I just needed to keep talking.
"Thankyou, Kiba," she repeated. It grated on my nerves, so I didn't say anything else just because I didn't want to hear her say it again. But a million thoughts continued to clutter my mind. I relayed to Shino how many stars there were in a square inch of the sky. I told him how many hoots I'd heard in ten minutes. I left out the splinters.
He didn't say a word.
Kurenai left us at the almost-house to fetch Hinata and Tobi-what's-his-name from the barn.
"The horses," Shino said when she was gone, "Bothered my kikaichu. They say... 'The horses have been touched by something which has been exposed to large doses of opium' "
I relayed my mutant theory to him with a dry laugh, suggesting maybe it ate opium as an appetizer. His nose didn't wrinkle, and I'd kinda already known it was a joke in bad taste. Really bad taste. So I shut up.
Kurenai returned with a red-eyed Hinata and no client in tow. They were seated and I perched on the table, leaving the seat to Shino, who hesitated before taking it.
I picked at the hem of my sleeve idly before getting up and wandering to the sink to wash my hands, maybe splash my face with some water. Something, anything, to distract myself.
"What happened to your cheek, Hinata-sama?" Shino asked. I stole a glance from the corner of my eye as she reached up to touch the swelling red mark tentatively.
"Oh," she murmured, barely above a whisper, "Th-the horses didn't like me..."
"I hate horses, too," I tossed in, trudging back over to the table, plunking my butt down on it. The far end rose up a little and slammed back down.
"Stop that, Kiba!"
Kurenai's voice was tight and high-strung.
I think we were all a tad tense.
"What next, Kurenai-sensei?" Shino prompted
She sighed and sat back down, brushing a lock of black hair from her eyes. "Well, we found the missing equine, that covers half of the mission-" Hinata continued to stare at her hands in her lap, not asking about the horses; Kurenai must have told her "-and, according to Kiba, the creature ran off the premises. I think our work for tonight is finished. We'll just have to stay another night."
I shivered, but I like to think it was due to the cold weather.
- - -
I NEEDED SOMETHING to take my mind off of things. Like really needed. So as soon as Shino's breathing evened out and I couldn't hear Kurenai tossing and turning in her bed, I crept out of my and Shino's room, to the foyer.
The receptionist lady with the fake hair was sitting there, smoking a strange-looking cigarette. Her make-up was a little disheveled, and even I could tell it was there.
"Good evening," I whispered, leaning on the counter. She quickly rearranged herself so her feet were not propped up and her kimono- tied in the front this time- wasn't riding up her thighs.
"Can I help you?" she asked. I shrugged.
Sex. Sex was a good way to forget about things for while.
"Know any places I can get cheap sex?" I asked casually, "I need to take my mind offa something."
She looked me up and down, eyes finally lighting on the raised lines on my cheeks from where the thing had clawed me. I self-consciously reached up to check and make sure they weren't too bad.
"Girlfriend troubles?" she suggested, eyebrows raised. There was a strange glint in her eye.
"Yeah, I guess," I muttered, waving it away.
"Come on back," she drawled, snuffing out the cigarette- maybe a cigar?- "You were such a good guest, after all."
She was pretty darned attractive, though probably a lot older than I liked, men or women, but I wasn't going to turn her offer down. Instead, I followed her to the back room. She was sitting on a mattress laid out in the corner, running a hand over the sheets. Her kimono was riding up again.
"Come here," she purred.
I shed my jacket as I crossed the room and she eyed by washboard stomach appreciatively, licking her lips. "Anything I should call you?" I asked, sitting next to her. She helped me out of my mesh undershirt.
"Souto," she smirked, stressing the 'ooh' of the 'u' in it. I let her push me onto my back, focusing on the feeling of her thumbs rubbing circles over my nipples. Not on the oddity of her name being a man's name, or how rough and calloused her fingers were.
She had awfully long nails.
"Souto," I repeated, "You don't need to call me anything."
"Fine by me," she said to the crook of my neck. I grit my teeth, screwing my eyes shut when she rubbed her hips against mine; just focus on the feeling, don't think about the horses, don't think about- shit. I already did. Great going.
Desperately, to refocus my mind, I reached up and pulled her kimono off her shoulders.
He glared down at me, and all hip-grinding stopped.
I was staring at a bruise forming on his left side.
"I can explain," he began in a voice that was decidedly more masculine. I frowned, reaching out to stroke his sides. I placed my hand over the large dark spot; my splayed fingers covered the smaller, lighter bruises.
He took a breath to say something, and I could feel his ribs.
"Oh my god, you w-"
"Fuck yourself," he hissed, grasping my neck with both hands. I tried to shout, but it came out as a strangled squeak. His face contorted as he straddled my stomach. "Yeah, I killed those horses. And damn you that I didn't get another tonight! That nice Arabian... Yess..."
My eyes widened, rolling up in the sockets and I struggled harder. He closed his eyes, smirking and letting his head fall back as he rubbed his hips across my stomach, and I could feel him through the kimono.
I've got nothing against screwing guys, but that made me want to puke; and trust me, I would've, but he was closing my throat off entirely with his choke-hold.
I remembered my free hands and socked him on in the face. He shouted and let go with one hand to hold his smarting jaw, and gulped down as much air as I could through my half-closed windpipe before he clamped down with both hands again.
"Why you little- nng," he took a moment to pin my hands down with his knees, "Bastard!"
I used everything I had to spit in his face, and he let go with one hand again to wipe it away. I gulped down air for that split second, trying to roll and kick him to no avail.
His wig slipped off, landing on my face.
And I realized why it only smelled kinda-of like horses.
Because the horses it came from, were only kind-of horses.
They were kind-of horses, strewn about the southeast corner of Happy Horse Farms, rotting. These wigs... were made of horse-hair. Coarse and strong, they smelled of spoiled oats, manure, and horse blood, which I had never smelled before, explaining why I couldn't place it.
I renewed my efforts to get him off.
"That's right, buddy-boy!" he hollered, still rubbing, "I kill them and make wigs for all the geisha! Do you know what I pay them in return for working for me? Huh? Do you?"
I couldn't seem him because of the wig on my face stamping out all light. I shook my head no feverishly, beginning to see spots of white against all the black.
"Opium!" he sang, laughing maniacally, "Opium, opium, opium!" over and over and over... still rocking his hips and laughing... still choking me.
I began counting down in my head, estimating that I had twelve seconds left before I passed out.
I had to count one four times.
Oh my god, Souto is fucking insane... I hate him!! By the way, Kiba's opinions of the horses are his and his alone. I love horses, and writing all this about killing them and making wigs out of them is just... I can't believe I did it.
I'm sorry! Only one more chapter of this god-awful mission I've sent them on... then the plot-plot (not the twists-in-the-plot) starts, I swear.
There are so many twists in the plot which come from this opening mission... I'll reveal them as I go along, incase they aren't clear enough. They are pretty... you don't know they're there because Kiba doesn't and this is strictly from Kiba's POV... well, for now. Maybe later there will be some in the third person for Shino (yay).